Queen of Angels (31 page)

would use speech; they served as gobetweens leaping from one level of mental activity to another. Until they were encountered, nothing in the way of words or sounds from this Country would be comprehensible as written or spoken language. The booming sound continued, more drum than machine now. Martin walked slightly ahead of Carol, taking this part of the exploration very slowly in case they missed something important. | No action here, Carol observed. | Do you think there was a war, some struggle? | Disturbance, Carol agreed. Nothing moving. Maybe theres been further contraction into the city centerthe skyline ridge. | Weve never seen this much concentration or desolation, Martin said. | Then its significant. A pathology like the shrinking of tissue. | I cant think of a better explanation. But the symbol hard structure is still hereeven to the outskirts, the desert roads. Action could take place, the landscape will still support it. | Like a wire with no current, Carol said. | Good comparison. He moved farther down the street. Carol broke away momentarily to walk up a flight of steps and peer into the dark buildings. He waited for her, a dull unease suffusing his thoughts. Tincture of Goldsmith. The dark canyon, fluxion of lights, neighborhood without inhabitants... If a war had not already occurred then perhaps they were marching over scorched earthpreparation for a battle yet to come. Take a look, Carol suggested, waving for him to join her. He retraced a few steps and climbed the stairs. Beyond an ill defined door stretched an incomplete hallway, changing character every few moments, with every shift of their attention. | Breakdown, he said. | This far in. The Country must be fading here, the focus going somewhere else. | Lets get to the center and not waste time out here, Martin suggested. If theres breakdown this part of the landscape is no longer significant... | Except as archaeology, Carol said. | Maybe not even that. His unease deepened. Desolation and decay; message characters imprisoned in the sidewalks. Rejection of all existing structures and patterns. What could cause this? The Country supported more than its own imageryit provided a base of sign and symbology for much of the high level activity of the primary personality and other major organons. Corruption or depletion of the symbology implied major mental dysfunction yet the therapists had detected no major dysfunction in Goldsmith. Ahead, at the end of the street, concrete steps with steel rails dropped to another street dozens of meters lower. Martin took Carols hand again and they continued the descent. | Maybe we can find a cab, Carol suggested. The street below filled with pieces of paper drifting and swirling in eddies of illusory air. Martin bent to grab one as they walked but it eluded him as if alive. Carol tried and failed as well; by the time they reached the end of the street and turned in the direction of the skyscraper ridge the papers had caught fire and vanished in twists of black ash. Martin looked up and touched Carol, pointing to an immense poster covering the windowless side of one dark five story building. Unfocused and everchanging, meaningless letters covered the bottom of the poster. The subject of the poster was the bust of a human-like figure with a perfectly smooth ovoid head. | Vote for Mr. Blank, Martin said. | The peoples choice, Carol agreed. They walked for blocks through the outer neighborhoods, seeing no occupants of any description. Carol compared the scene to a war zone; territory deserted in fear of a nuclear strike. | Maybe the economys in a downturn, Martin suggested. Ive never seen anything so void. | Wonder why its here at all. Memento mon. Above all the dreary empty brick buildings, the glowing skyscrapers of the central city beckoned, but they seemed to get no closer. After seeming hours of effortless but irritating walking Martin stopped and pulled down his toolkit. | Going to jootz? Carol asked. Jootz was a borrowed word they used to describe moving manually from channel to channel. He hadnt heard the word in years; he smiled at the memories it invoked of lighter investigations with more immediate results. | just looking at the time. Another thirty seconds. He pondered that. | We should be in the center of Country by now. If the skyscrapers are the center were not getting any closer. If we jootz we could lose this completely... | Im all for that, Carol said. | I dont think we should. Theres a significance here. | Lets call a cab. She was only half joking. They could make certain features manifest; but under the present circumstances Martin was reluctant to impose their imaging on the Country unless it was strictly necessary. It might be possible to compromise, however; to find a feature they could coax into usefulness. | Find a subway, he said. They looked around; no subway station entrances. The drums persisted like staccato heartbeats. And he said he was a Brooklyn boy, Carol said, frowning. | Hasnt lived there in a long time. Maybe we can explore the buildings again.., go into the basements. Suggest that theres some method of transportation. They walked over to what might have been an empty grocery on the first floor of a two story stone building that ran the length of the block. The inside of the grocery was more detailed; aisles and shelves, a cash register made of something that resembled slatemore of a sculpture than a machine. Carol reached over to touch the stone keys. | Theres a door, Martin said. They walked through the middle aisle to the rear, pushed through a double swinging door and found themselves looking into an immense garbage pit buried deep in a cavern. A railed parapet beyond the door overlooked the pit.

God, Carol said. Its not just garbage. Its bodies. More bones. Martin again saw piles of shattered crockery faces rather than bones. He had never observed anything like this in a Country; on the edge of nightmare, these signs seemed to point to some internal warfare, internal genocide. | Were not getting anywherenot seeing much Goldsmith, Martin said. Were just seeing a shell. | Maybe were in a trap, Carol said. | Ive never observed anything deceptive in the Country. | Weve never observed anything like this, either. Martin thought about the possibility of a maze. Could Goldsmiths mental resources have put up barricades against their probe? Goldsmith wouldnt know what to expect from a probe but his various organons could conceivably set up resistance to avoid painful self-revelations. | You might have specked it. Maybe were looking at a deliberate coverup, Martin said. A maze with misleading details... Not lies or deceptions but detours and decoys. Carol grimaced at the pit. | If this is petty detail, whats the hard stuff like? Were not going to find anything useful here. Back on the street Martin reached down to touch the apparent asphalt. The pebbled texture at first was unresolved but almost immediately became rough and totally convincing. He glanced up at Carol. She wavered for the merest moment before becoming solid. | I think its time to exercise some authority, he said. | About time. What first? | We need a street that leads directly to the heart of the city. Lets sayover there. He pointed to the next street crossing, frowned melodramatically to show intense concentration and gestured with a wave of his hand for her to do likewise. Nothing visibly changed but such authority was best exercised on objects or situations out of sight. There was less to overtly restyle that way. All right. Lets try it. They walked to the corner and stood facing the distant skyline. Straight as an arrow the new street pointed toward the city. The drumming sound had stopped; now all they heard was a distant rustling sound like taffeta skirts or wind through palm leaves. | Maybe we havent changed anything; maybe this Street just happened to go that way, Carol said. Martin concentrated again, deciding he would try the next restyling alone. An engine roared behind them. They turned to see an old diesel bus smoking noisily toward them. Martin put his hand out and grasped a bus stop post that he had not noticed before. | Im getting the touch again, he said. The bus pulled up beside the curb and opened its door. The design was late twentieth century but there was no driver or drivers seat. All aboard, Martin suggested. The bus moved off with a convincing shove of acceleration. Carol sat on a vinyl covered seat; Martin stood holding an age polished pole. | Looks like something Goldsmith might have seen as a child, she said. Are you sure this was your idea? | Its a collaboration, Martin said. The view outside the windows blurred. Objects outsped their afterimages, again leaving ghosts of black. The bus was traveling faster than the refresh rate of sensory creation. | When do we pull the cord? Carol asked. She pointed to a dark plastic covered rope threaded through metal loops above the windows. | Maybe we dont have to, Martin said. He raised his voice and addressed the driverless front of the bus: | Wed like to be left off in city center. Outside the bus the scenery went black, flickered violently and twisted back into place. The dreary empty avenues between dark deserted tenements were replaced by broad well lighted thoroughfares, scurrying crowds, tall, dean, prosperous-looking buildings, a light sprinkling of snow, Christmas decorations. The bus slowed to a stop and the door opened, letting in a windborne swirl of snowflakes. The temperature suggested a ghost of chill. They descended the bus steps and stood on the broad avenue amid the passing inhabitants of Goldsmiths central cityscape. In their movement and bustle, the inhabitants had very little real individuality. Their images conveyed a blur of color, a flash of indistinct limb or clothing, an instant of expression like a hastily applied cutout from a photo gallery of faces. The effect was more than impressionistic; Martin and Carol truly felt themselves alone in this crowd. The whirl of fabrications continued without disturbance. | I dont like this at all, Martin said. | Do you think all the message characters are this blank? Carol asked. He shook his head, grimacing with distaste. | They might as well not be here at all. What function do they .serve? In all their previous ventures into the Country they had encountered a vivid population of message characters as well as the stored impressions or models of the people the subject had known or simply seen. Here, if these fabrications had ever had individuality or convincing detail it had been leached out of them like color from cloth. Is this new, or has Goldsmith been this empty all along? Carol asked. | I wont even hazard a guess. Whichever, it means theres been a major disaster here... Major dysfunction. There cant be any other explanation. What sort of dysfunction would the tests miss? | Lets find out. The crowds parted for them with ghostly whispers of sound, distant repetitive tape recordings in an echoing hallway. At no time was any contact made. They made their way across the street to what might have been a large domed municipal building, perhaps a train station. The signs continued to be unreadable. What are we looking for? | A phone booth, Martin said. | Excellent idea. Whom are we going to call? | The boss. A boss. Anybody with some authority. | The mayor, perhaps, or the President. Martin shrugged. | Id be satisfied with a convincing janitor. The entrance to the municipal building flowed with a river of nonentity. They passed through the flow down several flights of stone steps into a high ceilinged chamber at least a hundred meters in apparent diameter. Grand Central Station, Carol said. Martin tried to find a phone booth through the crowds. Carol gawked at the architectural detail high above them. He felt a wave of surprise and fright from her and leaned his head back to look up into the dome. He, too, felt a tremor of shock. The domes distorted perspective ballooned it several hundred meters overhead. Milky light poured through ports around the middle circumference. A thick web of black wires crisscrossed the domes volume with no apparent purpose, mystifying Martin until he noticed a series of doors and parapets near the top. Every few seconds, tiny figures leaped through these openings and fell voicelessly, spread eagled, to catch on the haphazard net of wires. They jerked, struggled like flies, became still. The wires were filled with snagged corpses. With that kind of visual acuity possible only in dreams or in the Country Martin saw these snagged corpses as if they were only a few meters away. Their faces had far more character than any of the ghosts bustling around the city; decaying expressions of futility and death, pitiable shards of faces, so many they could not be counted. And no single victim, once let loose from the focus of Martins attention, could be found again; instead, the corpses came in endless variety, never the same. Carol screamed and stepped aside. A decayed arm broke away from some body high in the dome and fell to the tile floor with a hideous whack. Martin walked around the severed limb and grabbed Carol, hugging her tightly. | This is a nightmare, she said. Weve never seen anything like this in Country! He nodded, his chin bumping the top of her head. Dispassionately, he observed that he had no ulterior motives in hugging Carols image; he had simply gone to her to protect her and to alleviate some of his own sense of horror by at least the simulation of physical contact. In their previous journeys up Country the territory had been surreal, dreamlike, but never nightmarish. The horror and panic of genuine nightmare came from misinterpretations and misplacements of psychological contents just below personal awareness; memories and phobic impressions mixed haphazardly with many layers of retrieved deep imagery. The Country in its pure form had never before been a place of honor... Maybe were seeing a crossover to another level, higher than the Country, Martin suggested. | I dont think so, Carol countered. On what level would this make sense? This is here and now. The boneyard in the cavern, the bones or crockery or whatever on the outskirts... This is consistent, Martin. He had to agree that it was. | Tell me what you think it means. Carol shook her head. She pushed him away gently. Another piece of anonymous decayed flesh dropped and hit with nauseating conviction a few meters away. The wraiths opened up and passed around the tiles where the detritus had landed. | Find the phone or whatever were looking for and lets get on with this, Carol said. Martin agreed. He did not want to spend any more time here than necessary. They walked through the wraiths, meeting no resistance, and tried to locate phone booths or anything that might give direct communication to some center of authority. Martin and Carol had found such strategic arrangements in their previous explorations: whether they had had a hand in creating them or not, neither could be sure, but they had proven useful. Now, nothing of the kind was apparent. They returned to the foot of the crowded steps. | This may be a fae, all of it, Carol said. Were getting nowhere. Martin shared her frustration. He pulled down his toolkit and observed the time. They had spent ten minutes in Country and had learned nothing significant, beyond the fact that Goldsmiths deep mentality was unlike any they had toured before. | Well try a channel leap, then, he said. But we might jootz out of the Country completely. | Im willing to take that risk. Martin grabbed the red box and pulled it lower to look at the displays. Channel coordinates they had already passed through scrolled by at a touch of his illusory finger. He locked them off, started a search for a new but contiguous channel, found several likely candidates and was about to press the switch for their transfer when Carol touched his arm and told him to wait. | Theres something at the top of the stairs, she said, pointing. He looked. Visible even through the rushing ghosts, a person shaped smudge of black with a white face stood watching. Martin tried to see it more clearlyto exercise the prerogative of visual acuity in this place where space was a true fictionbut failed. | Thats something new, Carol said. Before we jootz lets find out what it is. They climbed the stairs slowly, approaching the smudge. It did not move nor did it exhibit any of the nervous, restless triviality of the wraiths. It seemed to have a continuous presence, a concrete character; although Martin did not find its nature posztive. If anything, the closer they came the more he felt a sensation of cold negativity just the opposite of what one expected from any character in the Country. They reached the top of the stairs. | Its wearing a mask, Carol said. The figure faced them with casual slowness, its body a shadow or cloud of smoke given fixed shape; over its facelessness it wore a chipped ceramic mask much like those junked on the outskirts and heaped in the garbage cavern. This mask conveyed little but the efforts of some pitiable past artisan; it tried to mimic a fixed smile and failed. Its eyes were empty holes. Its only color was pale pink on cheeks conspicuous in the general dead silicate whiteness. | What are you? Martin challenged. Never having met this kind of inhabitant before he could hardly know whether it was capable of speech. The shadow lifted its arm and pointed at them, one extended finger a curl of black soot. It made a hollow mumble of wordlessness like water dripping in an empty pail. The shadow approached them, its outlines smearing, only the mask retaining its apparent solidity. Carol backed away; Martin held his ground. Its sootfinger touched him and took away his hand and arm. They simply vanished. He felt no pain. | Arm and hand, come back, Martin said, with a calmness that he realized he should not be feeling. The limb returned and he was whole again. The shadow backed away, bowing with an air of false obsequiousness. | What is it? Carol asked. (Fear, strong but controlled.) What did it do to you? | Took a chunk out of my image, Martin said. Thats not possible here. | Apparently it is. | But what does it mean? Messing with our images.., whats the purpose? The shadow approached Carol, again growing larger and less defined. She backed away. Martin stepped between them and held out his arms as if to embrace it. The shadow retreated. | This is too much, much too much, Carol said. (Fear gaining control.) Hold on to my hand, Martin suggested. She gripped it tightly. | There are others, she said, pointing with her free hand. Beyond the doors the flow of wraiths parted, the river of activity ebbed. More shadows with ceramic masks entered the station, casual, sinister and observant. Martin searched his memory for some clue as to what they were facing. The sense of negation was strong; these shadow figures were contrary to all the usual functions of the deep mentality. He wondered for a moment if they had stumbled onto something truly supernatural but dismissed that with a disgusted shudder. | It may be time to pull out and regroup, he said. He did not know what would happen if these figures were able to dissolve their images completely. He did not want to find out. They pulled down their toolkits. | Lets see if we can leave them behind, Martin said. He was very reluctant to abandon the probe in defeat. That had never happened before. How would he explain it to Albigoni? He reached up to adjust the channel coordinates. The entire scene around them jerked, wavered, but they had not yet touched the controls. Martin was instantly aware how much trouble they were in. He tried to grab for the ripcord the hell with decorum and with the probe but the shadows washed over them like a tide of lampblack, masks whirling and shattering against the stone steps. He saw Carol absorbed in the tide. Her image sparkled and vanished. He felt himself go. The toolkit just centimeters from his fingertips displayed a wildly flickering channel coordinate and frequency and then the red box dissolved. His image dissolved along with it. Martins personal subjectivity discharged into something vaster and very different. Carol was still near; he could feel her panic almost as strongly as his own. But the nature of her presence changed. He felt her as something large and other blended with his self and all that lay beneath that self; and together, that combination mixing yet again into a larger ocean of otherness. He could not subvocalize. He could not recover the toolkit or any portion of it. He could not will himself out. With an even greater